Shadows and Regrets
by Danger All Around
Summary: (I'm making my rewrite of 'Oh how the World is' in a different story to keep track.) Kyoko's life is finally settling into place, she's getting more work, and she's (Almost) keeping her feelings for the number one man she can't fall in love with at bay. Then her mother comes in, and everything goes wrong. So who has time to notice the media rumors going around, damn that beagle.
1. Bad Start

**Kyoko's life is finally starting to come together: She got her first role as a protagonist in a new romance drama, with Ren as her leading man! Life couldn't be better for her, until the epitome of her painful past rears it's ugly head, her mother comes to Tokyo to get her daughter back. All of a sudden it's like Tokyo's turned upside down for rising star Mogami Kyoko, not that she'll be able to stay in tokyo very long at this rate. **

**And with all of that going on, it's no surprise that they haven't seen what's been going on in the tabloids. It's just a shame that everybody else has.**

Chapter 1: Off to a Bad Start

"Oh shit!"Kyoko had just finished with school, and she was on her way to film at the set of 'Goddesses aren't born they're built' It was her first protagonist role as Aiko Chmura a business savvy teen working to earn the approval of her harsh father. The drama was a romance, and she didn't know if she could do it, but she made a commitment. As if that wasn't stressful enough, she was working for the man she absolutely, one hundred percent, above all else, could **NOT** fall in love with. Ren Tsuruga played the love interest. Out of all these troublesome things with it being the first day of a job she knew she would have to kiss Ren on eventually, having her first protagonist job keeping her career in balance, falling head over heels for a man that not only would never love her, but was already in love with someone else, and how packed her schedule was getting between this and the movie she was cast as the main antagonist in, she just didn't have time for this.

"Wow, a bit rude aren't we? I came all the way out here to visit you, Kitty Cat," He took a step forward, smiling a bit too wide for Kyoko to be comfortable with, which was any amount at all, really.

Kyoko unconsciously stepped back a little bit, though had she been thinking about she probably would've backed up anyway, just his presence sent a chill up her spine, like a feeling of apprehension, it sat in her stomach and it was if it took all of her energy just to hold herself up, rather than to curl up on the ground in fear. It took so much effort just to be able to talk to him, it was no wonder she couldn't move when he got close. "What do you want!?" She spat out.

"Do you really not know? You are so thick when it comes to these things," He shook his head with a feeling near sympathy, she was just too peculiar to survive in the real world, he was surprised he was her only stalker thus far.

"Don't call me stupid!" She protested loudly. The beagle was trying to piss her off, and she knew it, but she just couldn't stop herself from shouting at him, he even made her get along with _that bastard_ for a little while.

She went to back away some more, but Reino was ready for this, he matched her movements gracefully with swift, smooth movements, he wasn't ready to let her get away this time, not now that that pacifist lion was out of the way.

"Stay away from me you creepy psycho stalker!" Kyoko raised her voice even louder, blissfully unaware of the crowd of media driven teens from her school that was starting to form.

Kyoko, not being too recognizable, was a peculiar sight to see standing next to the short lived rock star Reino. People got curious, most wondering what he could've done to make Kyoko so angry. Several pulled out mobile phones to take pictures and videos as evidence to their friends when telling the story later.

"Hmm I'm afraid I just can't do that," he chuckled stepping so close to Kyoko that he could feel her breath on his shoulder.

Kyoko totally froze up. It was hard enough to respond to the man was at a distance, let alone when he was breathing down her neck. "GET AWAY FROM ME YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH!" she shouted all of a sudden, startling her classmates. Reino reeled back slightly, his ears ringing from the loud noise. She took the opportunity and ran toward the far door a little faster than she needed to.

"Not exactly a good start to my first day getting to play a protagonist" Kyoko sighed and picked up her cell-phone. She had one missed call… from her leading man.

-End-

**A/N: So not only will I be editing existing chapters, but I will probably be adding in more chapters between for depth.**


	2. Not Fair

**A/N: This is going so well, if this story gets 50 reviews (Don't worry, the story isn't anywhere near over yet) , I'll draw a super cute, super terrible (which is just generic of my art) Chibi of Ren and Sho fighting over Kyoko and put it on my DeviantArt page. (I'll probably do it even if I don't get 50 reviews...)**

Chapter 2: So Not Fair

And so she ran, she got the message, and she ran. It wouldn't have mattered that she arrived on set late given the sudden schedule change, but she was not-so-blissfully unaware of that. Four miles in thirty-eight minutes wasn't exactly record speed, especially not for Kyoko, but she made it just in the nick of time. "Th-thank you for telling me about the schedule change, Ts- Tsuruga-San," She panted.

"It would be a bit cruel not to, don't you think," All the girls around melted as he flashed them an overly bright smile, all except Kyoko, that is, who cringed at the mere sight of such a vibrantly happy aura.

'_Shit what did I do wrong this time?' _ Kyoko cried internally, fear etched across her face, '_No, I won't get caught up in this like I always am, I'm just going to get work done,' _she nodded to herself '_besides, He'd be even more angry if I got in the way of work right?'_ She straightened up and walked into the room where they would be meeting to discuss the project.

There was a rectangular table, One one end sat the director, the other was the the filmographer, there were 4 seats each on the longer sides of the table. On the far side from where Kyoko entered, there was the man that would play Devin, the love rival, along with his manager, as well as the lovely couple that would be playing her parents. On the same side as her there was Yashiro, closest to the end, accompanied by Ren, and with an empty seat between there was then the large, scary man that would be playing one of the gang's ring leaders. Kyoko looked briefly at the seating arrangement and noted that the only seat left was next to the one person she didn't want to sit with at that particular moment.

She took a seat and waited for the director to speak. He quickly went over the schedule and deadlines, when certain things need to be done, and how much leeway would be on those times given. It was pretty standard and took a little over an hour before she was on set to film the prelude.

* * *

_**This has gone on for long enough.**_ **She thought. **_**I can't take it anymore! **_**She pressed the flat side of the knife against her skin to feel the coolness quickly fade away into the warm surface of her arm. **_**It's not fair! How can he just say he loves me like that? He made me feel guilty! He has no right!**_ **She blinked a few times to keep the tears at bay but it didn't help. **_**He should be the one who's sorry! How can he swoop in to save me, then disappear for so many years, then expect me to be exactly the same when he got back!? **_**Aiko sighed and remembered the phrase her grandmother had always said, be it a strange one, she still remembered it over all the years. 'Nothing says you never change like 'I don't know how to stay the same.'' "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!" She screamed, stabbing the knife into her arm. **_**HOW DARE HE MAKE ME FEEL GUILTY: HE HAS NO RIGHT! **_**She made him forget her purpose, what she was born to do, and he made her feel sick with guilt and shame every time she went to move forward in the world, and she hated it. **_**He'd better not rear his ugly head again, If he does, I'll do everything in my power to destroy him! IT'S ALL HIS FAULT! **_**She took the knife and lightly carved the words into her skin. "It's all his fault," She whispered. "and I'll get you back for it," a few stray tears streamed down the sides of her face. "So watch your back," She watched she silky red blood ooze from her new wounds. "'Cause I'm coming for you,"**

* * *

"Cut!" The director called out. "That was great Kyoko-San, we hope to see more like that from you in the future. Unfortunately since there was so much time we spent talking, and the rest of the scenes will require prior setup, that's all for today," He repeated what he had said to the rest of the cast and crew, and everyone disbanded.

Kyoko headed home, she still needed to know what she did to make Ren so angry with her. It was just as she was going over the possibilities that her phone started to buzz. "Hello?" She answered.

"Jeez, where are you?" A familiar voice came through the speaker. "I've been trying to call you, didn't you get off of work like 20 minutes ago? Mo, I've been calling you ever since, you really need to start answering your phone."

Kyoko knew every word of what her friend just said passed in one ear and out the other. "Moko-San~" She chirruped giddily.

"MO! Just get back to your house as soon as possible, I'm tired of-" She was cut off by the sound of the door opening. "I suppose I should've told you I was coming, but I figured you didn't care if I stopped by unannounced." She said, hanging up the phone.

Kyoko giggled. "What are you doing here?"

Kanae was angry all of a sudden. "To talk some sense into you! How could you go and do something like that!?" She was pissed, but it was clear from the look on Kyoko's face that she had no idea what was going on. "Oh my god. How do you not know when these things happen?" She reached into her bag and pulled out a laptop. "Here." She pulled up the website for a gossip magazine.

"That's me," Kyoko said blankly, staring at the image on the home page. "Kissing, that damn beagle," All of a sudden she knew why Ren was so mad at her.

* * *

Ren opened the front door of his apartment, and there was no one standing on the other side. He couldn't figure out who would've rung the bell and left, it was a bit too classy of an apartment to expect people to be playing ding dong ditch. He looked down at the ground and figured out who would be ringing his apartment at eleven o'clock at night. Kyoko was on the floor doing a flat out dogeza. She muttered something inaudible to the floor. Ren knelt down so he was closer to her level. "Mogami-San,"

Hearing him call her name made her heart skip a beat. **((A/N: I know, I'm terrible)) **she quickly propped herself up onto her palms, accidently closing the majority of the distance between their faces. She fumbled for her words, nearly forgetting what she came to apologize for. She tried to speak, intending to say the entirety of what actually happened, but when she opened her mouth to start, all that came out was "You haven't even eaten dinner yet have you?" That was definitely not what she had intended to say, but the guilty look on his face said that it might just help her achieve her goal anyway.

"Tsuruga-San," She scolded in a way that could almost be mistaken for whining. _Almost. _"You have to eat dinner, you're always talking about professionalism, and you can't even take care of yourself to the extent of actually eating, you can be such a hypocrite,"

Ren smiled, he was actually a little relieved that she hadn't brought up the events from that afternoon. He felt childish for getting so angry, he knew that Kyoko wouldn't actually even kiss that psycho rock star. He thought himself to even be a little bit lucky that she didn't get mad when he started jumping to conclusions. "I'll eat dinner if you'll eat with me,"

Kyoko was going to protest when she realised that she hadn't eaten yet either. She figured it wasn't the best time to be hypocrite, given what she had just been saying. "Alright, but I'm cooking," She said, remembering the omu-rice incident.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," He smiled, leading her inside.

* * *

Kyoko was a lot less confident for filming on the second day, the first it wasn't a problem, because all she had was feelings of hate and anguish toward love, but it was a romance, it was only a matter of time before she started to actually have to do romantic scenes. They only had a short while to work on the project, they were only going to finish filming 4 episodes before they aired, normally they would always be filming significantly in advance, but the project was already months behind schedule and they hadn't even started yet. Walking in she saw that the set they had prepared was the main gang's sort of 'base'.

"Alright," The director announced. "We're going to be starting with scene thirteen in episode 3, I thought we should start with this one because it really sums up the characters personalities, as well as the plot.

* * *

"**I'm in a gang!"**

"**You get used to it,"**

"**SHUT UP!"**

"**Yes'm" **_**What is it about this girl that makes it so impossible to disobey? I'll admit, she does have a certain fear factor going for her.**_

"**M-my dad's gon' kill me, you're gon' get me in so much trouble!" She buried her face in her hands.**

"**What!" The boy's jaw dropped "That's what you're upset about?" He shook his sadly. "I can fix that," Aiko perked up. "And before you say it, yes, really"**

"**How?"**

"**Pixie dust!"**

"**You're a child,"**

"**Fine, you need a cover story,"**

"**Like what"**

"**You're going to get a job,"**

**Aiko tilted her head back and groaned. "Gross! Jobs are for poor people! I'm rich, I don't need to work!"**

"**That," The boy was taken aback, yet he still had a hint of pride in his voice. "Has to be the single most shallow and pretentious sentence I've heard in my entire life," He smiled a little. "Whole new level of respect," The two of them just stood there in an awkward silence for a total of thirteen minutes before the boy spoke again. "It's not like, a manual labor type job or anything like that, you'll work for the company upstairs."**

**Aiko made a face "I'm going to make video games?"**

"**No, you're going to sell them,"**

"**Like marketing?"**

"**And finance. But yes."**

**Aiko smiled, but stopped suddenly as she thought of something. "How are you going to get me a job there? I'm only fourteen?"**

"**Just lie," The boy shrugged. "It worked for me: According to their records I'm thirty-two,"**

"**They can't possibly believe that!" Aiko choked.**

"**Of course they don't,"**

"**Then why'd they hire you?"**

"**They're pretty shady, it's a real raggedy business, probably gonna go out soon, they'll pretend to believe any lie you give 'em they just need people willing to work for them"**

"**But that's illegal,"**

**The boy scoffed, "They don't care. As long as you don't say something ridiculous like eighty-four you'll be fine,"**

"**Oh," Aiko stood silent, processing. "HOW CAN I RESPOND TO THAT LIKE IT'S NORMAL!?"**

_**Uhg,**_ **she thought. **_**This is the weirdest day ever!**_

"**I can imagine,"**

"**That was outloud?"**

"**Didn't need to be,"**

**Aiko raised an eyebrow, and the boy leaned in close. "It was written all over your face," Aiko gulped, as the boy was horribly frightening at close quarters. "Anyway," He stood back up and straightened his tie. "Let's go get you a job!"**

* * *

"Cut!" The director called out. "That was excellent, I can tell this project is going to be a lot of fun. The filming went smoothly, with only one scene having to be redone, and that was only because Kyoko left her shoelaces untied and they made her fall down.

The majority of the cast was leaving through the front entrance, and that was when Kyoko spotted her, the woman of her nightmares, waiting for her.

"Oh good," Saena said coldly, "I've been waiting for a long time, your filming ran late, funny how even when I come all the way out here to see you, you're nothing but an inconvenience.

Kyoko scowled. "Thanks Mum,"

-End-

**A/N: Okay, so in conclusion, I'm not going to add more chapters, but I'm going to add more into the chapters.**


	3. Cryptic Words

Chapter 3: Cryptic Words, and a Media Mistake

Kyoko crossed her arms and looked at the ground, the crowd of extras behind her occasionally producing someone that would knock into her. She slouched so she could look at the ground with ease. It was definitely unusual for her to have anything but perfect posture, not that in a large crowd, almost entirely of people that met her that day, anyone would notice. But Tsuruga Ren was not just anyone.

Looking into the crowd he saw her there, hunched over, looking like she was on the verge of tears. He was about to approach her when he noticed the woman standing a few feet away. She was average height and slender, with black hair, not unlike how Kyoko's used to look, pulled up into a neat bun. '_Is that her mother?' _the fact that she might be in contact with her mother worried him, he remembered all of the horrible stories she told him as a child, but he couldn't confront her about it, because 'Ren Tsuruga' had never been told. If she had trouble with her mother, he couldn't help her until she came to him. There was nothing he could do for her, and he couldn't stand it. The crowd passed, but Ren never noticed, because even when there we people slamming into him, and talking in loud, overlapping conversations, all he saw was Kyoko, and the woman that was killing her softly. He knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, but not enough to make him stop.

"What are you doing here?" Kyoko asked, her voice sounded soft and fragile, broken beyond belief. "You've never cared to see me before in your life, why do you want to see me so much now?"

Saena smiled cruelly. "I didn't say I _wanted_ to see you, I just said I came all the way out here to see you," She made a face, almost as if she was flinching at what she had just said.

"Ren," Yashiro called out. "We're gonna be late,"

"Yeah, sorry," He flashed Yashiro a bright smile, that could make anyone (That knew him) shudder with fear. (And the rest swoon with ignorance) "Shall we go then?"

Yashiro said nothing, only turning to lead the way.

* * *

"Why are you here?" Kyoko tried to sound angry, she really did, but her voice cracked mid sentence, and she nearly broke down in tears.

"I'm sorry," Saena stated plainly.

"You're sorry?" Now she sounded angry. "My whole life you weren't there, you didn't care about me, or for me, you were nothing but cruel! Of all of those things, which are you finally apologizing for!?"

"None of that," Saena smiled sadly. "I'm apologizing for what I'm going to do, but I don't want to tell you, not just yet, just... make good will with any enemies you may have"

* * *

Kyoko was pacing in front of the apartment door, but just couldn't bring herself to knock. '_It's not like I want to see him so badly, but this needs to be sorted out as soon as possible' _She thought back to what her mother . had said that afternoon. "It's not like I'm listening to her either!" without realizing, she started thinking aloud, and had no clue when the door was opened.

"And what brings you here so late at night? as if the rumors weren't bad enough already,"

Kyoko froze momentarily then turned to reply. "Listen, Beagle, I don't know where those photos came from, but we both know we didn't kiss, as much as we don't get along, I feel that we should try to work together, because neither of us want these rumours floating around."

"I do," Reino corrected. "I started the rumours," Kyoko raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying it. "I noticed all of the kids taking pictures so I asked on girl for all of her photos, do you really think she was going to say no?"

"Where you got the pictures isn't the point," Kyoko shook her head angrily "How the hell was there any sort of angle where we looked like we were kissing!?"

"There wasn't one," The beagle shrugged. "As it turns out, I'm good with photo editing,"

Kyoko's demonic aura of rage intensified around her, a defense mechanism of sorts, but as a Denizen from Hell, Reino was unphased.

In fact, he smiled at the change in atmosphere, having been waiting for it, he just found the perfect time to ask his question that he thought he might get an answer out of her. "So who is this 'her' that you're not listening to?"

"None of your business!" She replied loudly, her face tingeing pink with anger. She folded her arms over her chest with a sense of finality, "It's not like I'm listening to her anyway, so it doesn't matter."

Reino almost instantaneously hatched a plan to figure out exactly who 'her' was referring to. "Are you talking about that bitch-"

Kyoko, a bright shade of scarlet, started shouting, "DO _**NOT**_ CALL MY MOTHER A BITCH! SHE MAY BE HORRIBLE AND FOUL BUT SHE'S THE ONLY FAMILY I'VE GOT AND SHE MIGHT BE TRYING TO MAKE AMENDS WITH ME, SHE'S GIVING ME EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WANTED!" She was practically panting, having run out of breath from roaring so loud and long. "Now after all this time, and the death of my father that no one ever even told me how it happened, everything is a mystery. My life's gotten so weird, I don't even know what my mother has planned for me if she does apologize and try to become close to me, will I have to move back to Kyoto? Will I have to move somewhere else entirely? Or will she respect my wishes and let me stay in Tokyo with all my friends?"

Reino contemplating getting a notepad and pen to write down what he was hearing, but he didn't want to risk startling Kyoko with any sudden movements, lest she run off after realizing what she'd done.

Which she hadn't yet, and continued to blabber on, almost incoherently she was speaking so fast. "I can't possibly leave Tokyo, I've made a whole life here, President Takarada has been so kind to me, and Maria-chan will be devastated if I leave, plus Moko-san was my first female friend, what'll I do without her? And-" She held out the word, almost as if she wasn't going to continue, then she suddenly started up again, with a newfound courage. "Not to mention Tsuruga-San, I know that he's Japan's number one bachelor and he'll never love the back but I at least need closure because I know I'm not supposed to, I know that I'll only end up heartbroken again,

But I really do love him!"

Kyoko let her jaw drop, she just went up to someone she despised and told him everything.

Sometimes it gets to such a point where there can only be one word to describe a situation...

'_Fuck'_

-End-

**Well Now that I'm writing this in a new story, I **_**am **_**writing using more chapters. Bwahahaha. **

**Also, I apologize for all the typos, and grammatical errors, and such, I really ought get myself a beta-reader.**


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